Welcome to the Dollhouse
by misscreepy3
Summary: AU of what happens in the dollhouse. Told from the perspective of Toby, Ezra, and Caleb (who are trying to solve the mystery of where the girls are), the girls parents, and the girls themselves. Alison is actually dead in this story and there are other slight discrepancies.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: This is my first ever fanfiction. I used to write a lot in high school but stopped once I started college. It's been 4 years since I've written anything other than essays for school. I've started my own book and am writing this as kind of practice for that. I would love to hear peoples reviews and suggestions and I hope you like this!**

 **I uploaded the first 4 chapters right away and I will try and update at least once a week (we'll have to see how that works though!)**

 **Thank you for reading :)**

* * *

"Dude this is seriously creepy" Caleb said as he surveyed Ezra's cabin. The walls were littered with pictures of Aria, Spencer, Emily, Hannah, and Ali; there was a huge map of the Ravenswood and Rosewood counties, marked with many messily scrawled notes and arrows. Hanging up next to a blacked out window there were countless newspaper articles pinned up on a giant bulletin board, all centering on Alison DiLaurentis's alleged murder/kidnapping.

"Do you mind?" Caleb motioned towards the three monitors on a little desk against the back wall.

"No" said Ezra, his eyes flashed a steely grey, and he stalked into the kitchen to grab three beers from the fridge.

He popped the cap off of one and sat it on the desk where Caleb was now sitting at. Caleb had gotten through Ezra's password protected screen saver suspiciously easily. Ezra chuckled at the thought of his high school student hacking into his computer, he was impressed.

Caleb had already started downloading the tracking software from his cloud storage. Caleb had snuck a GPS tracker onto the inside of one of Hannah's wheel wells when all of this "A" business resurfaced. He was glad he hadn't told Hannah about this or else she would have made him take it off and they would be one step further from finding their girlfriends.

Ezra collapsed on the couch and handed Toby a beer. Toby was fuming, and Ezra could understand why. Toby had joined the police force just 3 months ago, he was sick of "Rosewood's finest" and their lackadaisical approach at detective work. Toby had worked his ass off to graduate as fast as he could from the academy but he had nothing to show for his hard work. A had still gotten Spencer. And Emily, and Hannah, and… Aria. Ezra shut his eyes and quickly got up before he could get too angry. He walked over to Caleb

"How's it going?" He asked, there was part of a map up on the screen, zoomed in on the abandoned mall parking lot on the outskirts of Rosewood.

"There" said Caleb, pointing to a flashing red dot. "That's where Hannah's car is!"

Toby sprung up from the couch, he hurried over the table, setting his unopened beer next to Caleb's.

"Write down the address for me, I'm gonna go check it out." He said.

"I'll come too" Ezra replied

Caleb nodded and scribbled down the location of the abandoned lot. "I'm going to stay here and try to find any online leads to where they might be. A has slipped up in the past, he might have slipped up this time".

Ezra nodded and clapped Caleb on the shoulder gently. "See you in a bit" he murmured.

(flashback to last night)

 _It was 11:30 PM, Ezra was sitting on his couch with his feet up on the coffee table. He was sipping on a glass of the worst whiskey he had ever tasted. He had gotten it for Byron ages ago, but never had the chance to give it to him because Aria had found out about the book and completely shut him out of her life. He couldn't blame her. He had been so stupid to think that this was something she could just brush off. He was half watching 'The Circus' one of Aria and his favorite Charlie Chaplin movies when he heard a sharp knock on his door. He groaned and sunk deeper into his couch, he knew that nobody he cared about could be at his door because nobody he cared about was talking to him. There was another hurried knock_

" _Ezra open the door!" He heard a familiar voice shout._

 _Caleb? Ezra shot up and rushed to the door swinging it open._

" _What's wrong? Is Aria okay?" He panicked, what other reason would Caleb be here for. Caleb hadn't come to Ezra's English class since he had found out about Ezra's book, none of them had…_

 _One look at Caleb's face and Ezra knew that there was no way that anything could possibly be okay, Caleb looked broken._

" _Can I come in?" Caleb mumbled, not waiting for a response and shoving past Ezra to collapse on the couch. "I could use a glass of that" Caleb said, nodding towards Ezra's glass of whiskey._

 _Ezra went to the kitchen and grabbed the whole bottle and another glass. He had given up refusing alcohol to his student-friends a long time ago._

" _What's going on?" He asked, sitting next to Caleb._

 _Caleb poured himself a shot and threw it back quickly, grimacing._

" _Hannah's gone… they are all gone... A finally got them"_

Ezra shook his head and came crashing back to reality. They had just pulled into the old mall's parking lot. There was only one other car in the lot. Toby cut the engine of his truck and they both slid out. As they got closer to the car they noticed that all 4 doors were open. Ezra hurried to the back seat, noticing Aria's phone in the foot well. He looked around and found Spencer's phone on the other back seat.

"Hey Toby, are Hannah and Emily's phones up there?" He asked, Toby who was sitting in the driver's seat. Toby rummaged around, searching the cluttered center console.

"Yeah" he sighed. "I don't see anything else useful here. There's no way we're going to find them" Toby's voice cracked and his shoulders shuddered. All he wanted to do was protect Spencer, he had failed at everything he had ever tried doing his entire life, and now he had failed to protect the only person in his life who ever believed in him.

Ezra frowned, as he turned on Aria's phone, the screen glowed and he saw what must have been the last message Aria had received before she had been taken.

 _Welcome to the Dollhouse… Bitches_

 _A_

Ezra gasped, and grabbed Spencer's phone. The same message was illuminated on her screen.

"Hey check it out Toby" he leaned over the driver's side seat to hand Toby the two phones. "Did Hannah and Emily get these messages too?"

Toby reached over to grab the two phones he had just set down, he felt kind of weird snooping through his friend's phones, but Ezra had been right. The same message was repeated on all four phones.

"The Dollhouse…" Ezra muttered, he still couldn't place where he had heard that title before.

"What is it?" Toby asked, turning around to face Ezra.

"I think one of the files I stole from Radley mentions 'The Dollhouse'." Ezra said after a while. Toby glared at him recalling that the reason Ezra had even felt the need to break into Radley was because he had been practically stalking the four girls for the past 2 years.

"Don't look at me like that… not now" said Ezra looking hurt "I know it was wrong, I know I should have told her. But we need to get back to my cabin because this is the only lead we have as of now."


	2. Chapter 2

"Please exit your rooms and follow the lighted pathway" A woman's voice sounded from a speaker in the corner of Aria's bedroom. Aria's eyes snapped open. She instinctively reached under her pillow, her eyes opened wide when she didn't find what she was looking for. She got on her hands and knees and frantically began searching through all of her covers and bedspreads, she was looking for Winesburg Ohio, a book Ezra had given her early on in their relationship. She got out of her bed and went to the bookshelf on the other side of the room.

'This isn't right…' she thought. The books on her bookshelves were not in the right places. She pulled out her copy of The Great Gatsby but to her dismay when she tried to open it she found it wasn't a book at all! All of her books had been replaced with cardboard boxes. And this was most certainly _not_ her room.

"replaced… where am I?" she said aloud.

"Please exit your rooms and follow the lighted pathway" Aria jumped and tentatively made her way to the door. She threw it open hoping with all her heart that Mike would be on the other side laughing at her because he had just pulled off the best prank.

And she stared out into a long dark hallway.

Aria slowly started walking down the hallway, following the little lights on either side. After walking just a few feet she glimpsed a figure in front of her. 'Spencer?' she thought. The figure whirled around, feeling Aria's presence.

"Spencer!" Aria exclaimed, running up to her best friend and hugging her tightly. Aria sobbed into Spencer's shoulder. She felt safer already, nothing ever got to Spencer.

"Hannah! Emily!" Spencer shouted, she was so glad to see Aria, she thought she was alone in this hell-hole, but now that she knew this creep had taken Aria she was sure that her other friends were here as well.

"Down here!" Emily cried. Running to Aria and Spencer. "Hannah come on!" Hannah was holding onto Emily's hand tightly, her face was white and her eyes couldn't help but give away just how terrified she was.

"Spencer where are we?" Asked Hannah

"How should I know?" Spencer scoffed back.

"You always know the answer to everything!" Hannah exclaimed "For god's sake don't end your streak here!"

"The last thing I remember we were in Hannah's car" Emily said slowly, straining herself to remember where they had been going.

"Do you think A drugged us?" Aria asked timidly "I know we must have been knocked out but I can't remember _anything_ ".

"I don't know but we have to figure out where we are" Spencer said matter-of-factly.

"Follow the lighted pathway" The sickeningly sweet voice said again.

"Hey does that voice sound familiar?" Asked Aria, cocking her head.

"Mona!" gasped Hannah "She's alive!"


	3. Chapter 3

The mall parking lot was about an hour away from Ezra's cabin, and so far neither of the men in the truck had said a word to each other. Ezra shifted in his seat awkwardly, they still had forty minutes to go until they reached the cabin.

"How have you been" He asked, looking at Toby timidly.

"I've been pretty fucking miserable actually." Toby snapped back at him, before Ezra could respond Toby started up again.

"Ezra, what were you thinking? That god damn book! I bet you thought it was just the best idea in the universe when you decided to move to Rosewood huh- how could you do that to Aria? Use her like that? You knew she was going to be your student when you met her, you've made her life hell for the past 2 years, and now you've broken her heart. Out of all the girls in the world you had to pick the most hopeless romantic to destroy." Toby shook his head "What the hell were you thinking Ezra"

Ezra looked out the window. He thought his self-hatred had reached its peak, but again he was wrong. Despite being the oldest one in the group Ezra often felt like he didn't know what he was doing.

"I swear it wasn't like that. Yes, I knew that Aria was going to be my student, and yes I started talking her because I thought she could give me information for my book, but I fell in love with her Toby. By the end of that day the book was the last thing on my mind" Ezra looked at Toby pleadingly "I never wanted to hurt her, she's the most important thing in my life"

Toby glanced at Ezra quickly and then focused on the road again. It was so hard to stay mad at Ezra. Before Toby had found out about the book Ezra, Toby, and Caleb had become really good friends. They would go over to Ezra's apartment to watch soccer games every weekend and had started an ultimate Frisbee team for Thursdays when their girlfriends had 'girl's night'

"Ezra you have caused so much trouble for us" Toby said shaking his head, Ezra looked down at his hands he knew Toby was never going to forgive him. "But I actually happen to like you" Toby laughed. Ezra's face brightened. "God Spencer is going to kill me when she finds out I've forgiven you, and you better watch out for Hannah when Caleb decides to give you a second chance."

"When he decides to give me a second chance?" Ezra raised his eyebrows and grinned at Toby

Toby threw his head back and laughed "The thing is, Ezra, Caleb and I have always been loners. You may be a grade-A jackass but you will always be our friend." Toby got a serious look on his face again "But once we get the girls back you better make everything up to Aria and never fuck her up like this again." Over the past two years Aria had become like a little sister to Toby and he knew Caleb felt the same way about her. Their group of friends had become very loyal to one another.

"once we get the girls back…" Ezra murmured.

"We are going to get the girls back" Toby said firmly, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

When Toby and Ezra got back to the cabin, they found Caleb passed out at Ezra's computer desk. Caleb had been trying to back-trace a message Hannah had received via email from A a couple of weeks ago. Ezra walked over to Caleb and shook him awake.

"Wha-" Caleb exclaimed jerking up with a startled look on his face.

"Hey" Ezra grimaced, he had walked over to a dauntingly high stack of boxes on the kitchen table. Caleb stood up, stretched, and walked over to the sink and splashed his face with bitter cold water.

"Did you guys find anything? What are you looking for?" Caleb asked, walking over to Ezra and Toby who were now both concentrating on locating the box with the Radley files in them.

"When we got to the car we found these" Toby said, carefully dropping the four cellphones onto the kitchen table. "Each of the girls got the same message"

 _Welcome to the Dollhouse… Bitches_

 _A_

"Ezra thinks he say that phrase 'The Dollhouse' in one of the files he took from Radley."

"Wait so Hannah's car was actually there?" Caleb clarified

"Yeah" Toby said distractedly, he had returned to rummaging through the boxes.

"So did you guys bring it back or did you just leave it in the middle of nowhere?" Caleb asked, looking at them incredulously.

"Caleb, I'm still a police officer" Toby said looking up "I honestly can't believe that the Rosewood P.D. hasn't found her car yet, but we can't tamper with evidence. We could get in serious trouble and the last thing we need is to be thrown in jail."

"That's true" Caleb said, shrugging. He picked up the phones and sauntered back to the computer table. "I'm going to see if I can get any information off of these"


	4. Chapter 4

**ROSEWOOD P.D.**

"Ella!" cried Ashley, running towards the short, brunette, middle aged woman who was sitting on an uncomfortable looking plastic blue chair.

"Hello Ashley" Ella got up to hug her "Byron, Veronica, and Peter are over there" she said, pointing towards the coffee and vending area.

"What is happening?" Ashley said looking confused and worried. "I thought the girls were all at the Hastings house tonight?"

"Yeah they were!" Ella said, "Veronica and Peter went to the country club for dinner and when they got home the girls were gone, they took Hannah's car. It's still missing!"

At that moment Detective Tanner entered the room. She started making her way to where Byron, Veronica, and Peter were standing. Ella and Ashley quickly followed.

"Have you heard anything about the girls? Have they been found?" Asked Byron cautiously. He was very worried about Aria but was trying to stay calm for the benefit of his wife, Ella.

"No. That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Tanner said, crossing her arms and staring down at all of the parents. "We don't think the girls were kidnapped. We think they ran away." She paused "These girls have been causing trouble for Rosewood P.D. ever since Alison DiLaurentis's funeral. They have cried wolf before and we don't feel as if there is enough evidence to use these kinds of resources towards this investigation."

"This is outrageous" Peter scoffed. Ella was fuming, she looked like she wanted to burst into tears and fire at the same time. Veronica's eyes narrowed, she was going to sue the shit out of Rosewood P.D. once the girls were found… negligent police work.

"You people have a terrible track record yourself!" Ashley shouted "or have you forgotten Detective Warden already? He practically stalked our girls. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

Byron had his hand on his forehead, he was looking down at the ground chuckling to himself.

"Do you find something funny?" Detective Tanner snapped.

"You guys are truly unbelievable." Byron said, looking up and shaking his head. "The last time you didn't believe the girls… my daughter was almost pushed off a train in a box with a dead man! This office is a miserable attempt at a police force. For god's sake, our girl's boyfriends do a better job protecting them than you do." He spat out the word 'boyfriends', he was still furious at Ezra for entering into a relationship with his daughter but he had to acknowledge how much Ezra had helped Aria in past predicaments.

Detective Tanner smirked, she was sick of this entitled group of girls and their interfering parents and boyfriends.

"Speaking of their boyfriends…" Tanner said slyly. "We put out an APB on Caleb Rivers… just in case." She gave them a cheap smile and turned on her heal and sauntered away. Ashley gasped and her eyes narrowed, Caleb was like a son to her and she knew for a fact he would never do anything stupid enough to get on Tanner's radar, she had to be setting him up.

The group of 5 parents huddled around each other.

"What are we going to do?" Byron said quietly "I know our girls wouldn't _all_ just get up and leave without telling _any_ of us."

"Come on" said Veronica decidedly "We need to find Caleb and Toby; the police are completely off base suspecting Caleb but I do believe the boys can help us find them."

"Agreed" said Ashley.


	5. Chapter 5

The four girls tentatively walked down the long dark hallway, refusing to let go of each other; Spencer was slightly in front of them, trying to look for any indication of where they were. They followed the lights around a corner and stopped in front of a tall yellow door.

"I feel like Alice, trapped in a room that's too big for me…" Aria murmured under her breath.

"Should we open the door?" Hannah asked, timidly looking at Spencer. Spencer inhaled sharply and grabbed the doorknob. She slowly pushed open the large door.

The girls let out a collective gasp. They were in a room identical to Ali's living room, and in the center was a blonde girl with a mask on, sitting at a large grand piano.

The four girls filed into the room and the door slammed closed by itself. Emily and Aria jumped, and the girl at the piano stood up slowly and ushered them to a couch against the back wall of the room.

"It's tea time" the girl said dreamily. Spencer, Aria, Emily, and Hannah all squeezed onto the small couch, refusing to leave each other's side. The girl in the mask made herself busy arranging teacups in front of each of the girls and offering them finger sandwiches. Hannah made to reach for one and Spencer slapped her hand glaring at her.

"What I'm hungry!" Hannah whined, slouching back and grumpily crossing her arms.

"And you don't know who made those and what they have in them" Spencer snapped angrily. "Who are you!" Spencer jumped up from the couch and shouted at the girl in the mask. The girl simply looked up and leaned across the table, moving her face very close to Spencer's. She reached out a tiny finger and pushed Spencer, decidedly, back onto the couch. Spencer fumed and tried to stand up so she could strangle the bitch, but Emily and Aria grabbed her and held her back.

"Careful Spence—" Whispered Aria, who nodded up to the top corner of the room. There was a video camera with a blinking red light "We're being watched…"

Spencer snarled.

"What the hell is going on" she spat. The girl in the mask sat down, her back to the camera, and very slowly reached up to her face and slid the mask off.

"Mona!" Hannah sprung up from the couch and ran to her former best friend.

"Sit down Hannah" Mona whispered tensely through clenched teeth. Risking a small glance at the camera, the light was still blinking, they were still being watched. Hannah pouted and retreated back to her seat on the edge of the couch. "And don't call me that" She said significantly louder nodding at them urging them to play along "That bitch is dead to me" she giggled! "Guys it's me! Alison".

Aria glanced at Emily behind Spencer's back and Emily shrugged.

'ding-dong-ding-dong'

There were 4 chimes. Mona/Alison stood up and motioned the girls towards the door.

"Four chimes means it's game time!" She said, with a smile on her face. She bustled past the line of four friends and led them back into the hallway.

Spencer followed Mona closely, holding onto Aria's hand. Hannah was shuffling as close to Aria as possible, with Emily tagging along behind everyone, looking very suspiciously at the walls surrounding them. They came to a junction, and Mona turned left down another dark hallway. They quickly reached another door, and followed Mona inside. The room they were in now was lined with bookcases containing comic books, toys, magazines, and lots of board games. There was a circular, magenta, table in the middle of the room with a game box in the center, and 5 chairs surrounding it. The girls tentatively took their seats and Mona unpackaged the game.

"It's called the Mystery Date Game" Mona chirped happily "The object of the game is to be ready for your date by acquiring an outfit. Then you get to open the door and find out who your mystery date is!" She beamed at them.

Aria reached over to the board game and pulled open one of the little plastic doors.

"Ezra!" she gasped. The picture inside the door had been replaced with a shot of Ezra from the Winter Ball. She quickly opened the other three doors and found pictures of Caleb, Toby, and Paige.

"I'm not playing this _stupid_ game!" Hanna shouted, scraping her chair backwards and standing up. Mona gave her a terrified look, begging her to sit down.

"ding-dong-ding"

"Ahem—It's mail time!" Said Mona, in a strained voice, giving the girls a large fake smile. She shuffled over to the mailbox next to the door and returned with 5 envelopes. There was one for each of the girls.

Aria opened the black envelope carefully and read her card aloud.

"My house, My dolls, My rules. Or Ezra dies.

With lots of love

-A"

"Mine says that too. Only A threatens to kill Paige in mine." Emily sniffled.

Hannah jumped up once more and glared directly into the camera.

"You've won! Alright- You can have us as your precious dolls. But if Caleb shows up here, if you do anything to hurt him, I _will_ kill you."

"Hannah! No!" screamed Mona, but it was too late. Ear piercing sirens had gone off. The girls clamped their hands over their ears and Mona ran to the door.

"It won't stop till we are all in our rooms!" She yelled, and then ran out back towards her room. The rest of the girls followed down the hallway quickly. They all looked at each other before stepping into their rooms, and the doors slammed shut behind them.


	6. Chapter 6

"Who's he on the phone with?" Toby nodded at Caleb, who had been pacing back and forth in the kitchen for the past 10 minutes.

"I don't know" said Ezra, who had been sitting on the couch the whole time trying to catch bits of what Caleb was saying." Caleb turned to look at both of them and Ezra mouthed 'what's going on?'. Caleb held up a finger and continued to talk, and Toby plopped down onto the couch beside Ezra.

5 minutes later, Caleb joined them and let out a sigh.

"Well, the bad news is that once Tanner finds me, I'll be arrested… and the _worse_ news is that you guys will probably be arrested as well, you know- for harboring a fugitive. But on the positive side, the girl's parents all want to help us, which means we're about to have two of Rosewood's best lawyers on our side, pro-bono"

"What the hell is going on?" Asked Toby, he couldn't tell if Caleb was being serious or not.

"Well apparently Tanner put out an APB on me. They basically think I hacked into their police system." Caleb responded giving Toby a guilty look.

"Did you?" Asked Ezra, leaning forward to look at Caleb.

"Well yeah!" Caleb exclaimed. "But I had to!" He said hurriedly, once he saw how Toby was looking at him. "I pulled their traffic camera's from the area surrounding Hannah's car, I wanted to see if I could find out where they went."

"Well did you?" Ezra asked excitedly, once more.

"No. Check it out" Caleb said as he led them to the computer desk. He pressed a few buttons and a cartoon image of a dog in a train popped up.

"What the hell is this?" Ezra asked

"A" Caleb replied glumly "He must have erased the original video, or blocked the cameras from recording in the first place; either way, I can't pull anything from this"

"Lovely" snarled Toby. "So what exactly is the plan now? Genius over here must have been wrong about the Dollhouse because we looked through almost every file and found no mention of it at all." He glared at Ezra, who held his hands up feigning terror

"Sorry man!" He laughed. "So you said something about _all_ the girls parents wanting to help us" Ezra looked at Caleb sheepishly "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Oh! Dude- you're gonna love this!" Caleb exclaimed, obviously excited to get to this conversation topic. "Byron, Ella, Peter, Veronica, and Ashley are on their way over right now!"

Toby and Caleb burst out laughing when they saw the look of terror on Ezra's face.

"E-Excuse me?" Ezra stuttered "The last time I was in the same room as Byron I ended up with a black eye and two broken ribs."

"Yeah, well I made sure to talk to Byron on the phone before giving them the address. He's agreed to put all differences aside until we find the girls. Personally, I think it's rather mature of him, seeing as you've been fucking his daughter, your student, did I mention? For the past semester" Caleb smirked as Ezra nearly choked on his water, it was so easy to mess with him sometimes, and they could all do with a good laugh right now.

Toby was practically in tears. "Let's try not to bring up that last part once Byron gets here!" he managed to gasp out between fits of laughter.

"Right." Grimaced Ezra, as he pulled on the neck of his shirt and walked into the kitchen.


End file.
